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Thursday, November 22, 2012

Random Thursday! In my German and American hometown...

Hallo meine Lieben!Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you are all having a wonderful time! It's not just Thanksgiving but also time for some more randoms on a Thursday. I am linking up with these wonderful ladies.

The topic is fabulous as usual. See.

Well I decided to write about both of my hometowns. The German and the American one.

My German hometown...

...is not even a real town. Only 700 people live there and everyone knows everyone. This means that on one hand I can just go into my neighbor's basement if I need some potatoes for dinner. But that also means that people talk. A lot. A lot of crap. Lots of people who live there are old and so they have nothing else to do than to spy on others. Very nice.

Some people can be really grumpy but you just have to ignore that.

It was founded by the Romans.

There are no tourist attractions in my town but you can hike for hours in the woods. And the next town is a little more touristy.

There is no school in my town. I always had to drive to another town to go to school.

The town has 5,99 square kilometers. Not very big. I have to say that my whole home state only has a population of 1.013.000 people. Tiny. Americans, you are allowed to laugh

There is not even a store in my German hometown. We have a bakery and a hair stylist but that's it. We used to have a pub but it closed because the owner killed himself. I guess small villages can be depressing.

There is a bus stop in my village. But only 3 buses stop there every day. You can't get your driving license in Germany before you turn 18 (well they changed that and now you can have it with 17) so my parents had to drive me everywhere.

When I look out of my Dad's living room window I can see lots of trees, the sky and cows. It is very picturesque. You can probably sleep on some streets without getting hit by a car.

People are friendly. But they also talk about you.

On holidays people celebrate and get drunk. It is tradition. In July there is a festival called "bean festival" but you can't even eat beans there. People also like to celebrate carnival.

You can't really count on the local firemen because they are all just regular guys doing that as a hobby. When you wait for the real firemen you burn to death.

All in all it is a pretty cool place.

the community center.

the town.

My American hometown...

is a little bigger than my German hometown. The population is 17000 which is still teeny tiny compared to all the huge American cities. It was founded in 1805 which is like a baby town for German standards.

There are lots of stores in my hometown. Unfortunately there is no sidewalk to reach them. So I have to ride my bike or walk on the street most of the time which can be a little scary and dangerous.

People are not grumpy at all. I have never seen an unfriendly person there. Everybody starts a conversation with you even when you just wait in line at the post office.

There are many restaurants in my American hometown. Some even have vegetarian and vegan options. There is no restaurant in my German hometown but the pizza place in the next town delivers to my town.

Everybody drives. Nobody walks. I guess that's no surprise because it is too dangerous.

But there are some fantastic bike paths and hiking aread further away from town.

There is a river. There isn't even a pond in my German hometown.

Parking lots are huge.

We have a neighbor who never wears a shirt.

All in all it is a pretty cool place.

A monument.

Where did you grow up? Do you like your hometown? What's special about it?

24 comments:

Haha Katrin I love this post! And I like how you comment that your home state is only about a million people.... isn't it really tiny though?? My home province is about 2 million people, but it is also bigger then Germany as a whole. Us Canadians like to spread out. ;) ~Stephanie

I love how nice both your hometowns sound! Your line about the firemen made me laugh! My home town is actually a county - Orange County, CA. I think we're the only place in America where people identify themselves by their county and not by their actual city.

Love hearing about your homes! Striking up random convos is definitely something I miss as it just does not happen in Germany. I can't believe only 3 buses come through but that y'all have a Friseur! We always talka bout how many places there are to get your haircut here, too funny.

Haha, your German hometown sounds a lot like the tiny place we live at! Same with the talking about others here. They know exactly when you leave the house in the morning and they know when you come home again. haha xxx

Awe, it was so nice to learn more about both your home towns! ;P I totally get how cool and hard it can be to live in a small town. My Argentine home town is really small, too, and there's always a lot of gossip and such ... In Argentina there's a saying to describe that that goes something like "Small town, huge hell", haha. I'm not sure people use it in English.

On the other hand, it's wonderful to know that in the unfortunate event that something wrong happens, your neighbors will be there to help ;).

I love how you talk about both your home towns :) I feel the same way - Suva in Fiji and Canberra in Australia. I love both of them for different reasons, but home becomes wherever I have to settle. And I somehow always end up loving it, usually quite quickly. Your German hometown sounds like a place I would be very very comfortable and happy xoxox

I had to download Google Chrome for my new laptop just so I could comment on your blog (apparently Safari doesn't like Blogger any better than Firefox did). It had the added benefit that it synced when I logged in and now I don't have to transfer all my bookmarks lol but it was because I couldn't comment here that I thought of it.

Anyhoo, it was interesting to hear about both of your home towns. If you ask my husband my home town isn't a real 'city' even though it's actually the 4th largest city in Ohio. Most people don't recognize it unless they're from Ohio or MIchigan, and even then it's usually only after I say it's close-ish to Detroit. Those who do know it probably know it most for the glass industry (hence 'the glass city'), the zoo, the art museum, The Mudhens and/or Tony Packos.

As for you new hometown, have you ever seen the movie HouseSitter with Goldie Hawn & Steve Martin? Well if you havent, go rent it cause your description of the town totally reminds me of the one in the movie. Also, I hope for the sake of your eyeballs that your shirtless neighbor has a nice bod :/